Semi-automatic means that for each pull of the trigger, one round is fired. You can certainly empty a 30-round magazine in 10 seconds like that if you want an ‘adrenaline rush’.
The person quoted is an idiot. And semi-automatic isn’t a ‘feature’, it’s just one action type out of several.
Two versions of semi-automatic in US Army bullet speak.
Semi-automatic give one bullet per trigger pull. This is the most common.
Semi-automatic may give a three (I know of one case - two) round burst with each trigger pull. This give a small spread pattern without the muzzle climbing or moving too much from recoil/gas energy or the person flinching.
Automatic is hold the trigger until the magazine or belt empties.
semi-automatic (aka autoloading): the weapon uses some energy from the firing of a round to cycle the action and load a fresh round into the chamber, but does not fire more than one round per trigger pull. Types of semi-automatic actions include but are not limited to blowback, recoil, and gas operated.
this distinguishes them from revolvers (which have multiple chambers which are loaded manually and brought in line with the barrel) and non-autoloading arms which require the user to cycle the action manually.
ETA:
NO. any arm capable of firing more than one round per trigger pull is automatic (i.e. defined as a “machine gun” by the US gov’t.)
That’s what I understood it to mean. But then why does he say: "And, if you don’t want to use the semi-automatic feature, “You can squeeze the trigger one by one and get a different feeling.” " ?
I really love how the author of the article set it up so that ‘semi-automatic’ sounds all scary.
Fun how?
SEMI AUTOMATIC!! :eek::eek::eek:
Because as I pointed out, he’s an idiot
He tricked out his rifle with a new handgrip, laser sights, etc. so he could pretend to be a swat guy. Those are the most annoying gun owners, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like the analogy in general, but for those guys the firearm really is an extension of their dick. He probably drives a big truck with a loud exhaust.
I’d like to offer the equally and perhaps more plausible opinion that the news reporter is confused with what he said. Its very easy and happens all of the time when a reporter is writing and trying to paraphrase quotes when they don’t really understand the topic. I’m willing to bet that if you contact the person, he would be indignant and insist he didn’t say that, but was misquoted.
As attractive as it might be to say that the reporter did this on purpose, I’m sure Hanlon’s principle applies and that it happened due to ignorance instead of nefarious reasons.
I have a simpler explanation - the reporter is ignorant about gun terminology. I noticed the direct quotes don’t contain “semi-automatic” anywhere. It’s the reporter that uses the phrase while book-ending it with direct quotes.
ETA: D’oh! Ninja’d
Even the kind of idiots who trick out their guns with all sorts of bling aren’t usually quite so stupid as to mistake semi-automatic for full automatic fire.
It’s also possible the gun is modified, legally or illegally. There are readily available kits (both legal and illegal) that will allow an AR-15 to fire in bursts or full-auto. Obviously the legal versions have some restrictions dealing with ATF registration and such.
Then the question becomes, why do journalists not bother to educate themselves about the topic. You may very well be right, there are plenty of instances of ‘journalists’ talking out of their ass when it comes to gun terminology.
Do they just assume that they know all they need to know, e.g. guns are scary, and saying ‘semi-automatic’ makes it scarier? Or are they wilfully refusing to learn more because the limited knowledge they have is sufficient to advance their agenda?
They are too busy to spend enough time to understand all the intricacies of all the different topics they are expected to report on completely accurately 100% of the time.
Great AntiBob, it’s been illegal to convert any non-full-auto to full-auto since 1986. The number of legal full-auto firearms available to civilians has been fixed since then - you can repair an existing full-auto, but the ATF will rain destruction upon you if you build a new one. It’s illegal just to own full-auto parts, if you also own the corresponding semi-auto firearm.
Of course they are. But we aren’t talking about an ‘intricacy’ here. It’s a basic piece of information about how guns work. Furthermore, it’s a piece of information they see as a ‘gotcha’.
Also, it’s an important enough issue that yes, I do expect them to have a little more than a passing familiarity before they report on it.
Sort of. You can still use the existing pre-1986 parts. And one sort of loophole is that only some of the lower part of the AR-15 is considered the “firearm” for ATF purposes, which can be entirely replaced with the older gear. It still needs to be registered with the ATF, though.
ETA: Wiki link (check towards the bottom of the History section).
As a computer guy, I can tell you when writing on computing topics, reporters are frequently wrong or misleading. Sometimes in ways that confuse my parents. And sometimes in ways that harm innocent people or insult large portions of the population (especially when writing about video games.)
I assume an expert in plumbing would say the same thing about reporters writing on plumbing topics.
The real problem here is that the only topic the report is expert on (assuming this was published in a general newspaper and not specialist press) is journalism.
The "automatic’ part of semi-automatic is that the weapon automatically extracts and ejects a spent cartridge and feeds a fresh round into the chamber.
There is a neat stock that can be added to an AR that allows one to easily “bump fire”. For now the ATF has declared it legal.
